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Last we mentioned my end-of-season sweet potatoes, it was in a post complaining about the sad quality of supermarket pecans. Not to worry, though; they aren’t rotting in my basement. I did fear that might be their lot, however, if I didn’t do something with them since they weren’t “cured.”

What to do with pounds of potential sweet potato rot? Cook them first, of course. So one slow day, I washed them, boiled them, drained them, let them cool and peeled them, a very quick operation once thus boiled. There were a few unappealing spots, but no more, I’d say, than if I’d cooked them the week I bought them.

And what to do with pounds of cooked sweet potatoes? Well, some of them got eaten plain; they’re delectable, to my taste, in their natural state. The rest went into the freezer for further storage. A few of them have been thawed and eaten plain, too. Freezing clearly caused no harm.

I intend to make a sweet potato soup one of these days, but in the meantime, I used some recently for baking. After rejecting the online recipes I found (one called for 1 cup of butter in 1 dozen muffins, which seemed a little excessive), I turned to old faithful Joy of Cooking. Following is my adaptation of that recipe. Everyone loved these muffins. They were pretty and had a nice, not-too-sweet flavor.

Sweet potato muffins

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 cup cold, mashed sweet potatoes
• 1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

1. Beat together eggs, butter, milk and sweet potatoes.
2. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and pecans.
3. Add egg mixture to flour mixture. Mix briefly, just enough to moisten all the dry ingredients; lumps are OK. Batter will be quite thick.
4. Spoon mixture into well-greased muffin tins, filling each cup 2/3 full. Bake in 400-degree oven for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let rest in tins 1 minute, then turn out onto wire rack to cool. Makes 1 dozen standard-size (about 3-inch diameter) muffins.

They’re good plain, with butter or, if you’ve got a sweet tooth, with honey or maple syrup. They’re great warm, but fine at room temp too.

By the way, you can also make these with 1 cup pumpkin instead of sweet potatoes (and in a brain lapse I gave the photo a pumpkin file name, but you’re seeing a sweet potato product). Joy also suggested 2 teaspoons grated orange rind as an optional addition. I haven’t tried that, but I’m betting it would be an excellent option.

What do you do with extra sweet potatoes?